


earned the right to happy endings

by madamebadger



Series: I choose to love this time for once with all my intelligence [2]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Anxiety, Comfort, F/F, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-25
Updated: 2015-07-25
Packaged: 2018-04-11 04:17:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4421009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madamebadger/pseuds/madamebadger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Compassion and Faith have a conversation, and Grace awaits.</p>
            </blockquote>





	earned the right to happy endings

**Author's Note:**

> This is sort of a coda to "cups of sorrow thrown into the ocean."
> 
> It’s also… I have always promised myself that I wouldn’t write Cole-talking-to-people-about-their-relationships unless I could do it in a way that treated Cole as a real fully-developed character and not just an ambulatory plot device. So this was my attempt. We shall see if it was successful.

“You’re afraid you’re going to hurt her,” Cole says.

If Cassandra was a less single-minded person, that–spoken, in characteristic fashion, out of thin air–might have startled her enough to falter. As it is, her blow falls true on the training dummy, and only after does she say, “What?”

“No,” Cole says. He has… appeared, materialized, whatever it is, perched atop one of the hay bales in the training yard, arms around his knees. “No, that’s not right. You’re afraid that she’s going to be hurt because of you.”

“Cole–”

“Like all the rest of them–Anthony, Byron, Justinia, Galyan, Daniel–”

If it were anyone else, she would probably have punched them by now. Even with Cole it is a near thing. Her hand flexes on the hilt of her sword. “No,” she says, hard as ice. “Stop.”

“–but it doesn’t make any sense. None of their deaths were your fault.”

“I do not wish to discuss this, Cole.”

He is quiet a moment. Cassandra breathes, trying to keep her temper. She likes Cole a great deal and _that_ is surely a surprise; in all her training she has been trained to mistrust spirits, and especially spirits who walk bodily in the world. But Cole’s purpose so closely matches the person she _wishes_ she was (help the hurt, save the small) that it is almost impossible not to like him.

“I like you too,” he says, earnestly, “and I wish it didn’t bother you so much that you like me.”

–except when he does that.

“Cole, you dislike seeing people in pain. Have you not noticed that it upsets people when you speak their thoughts?”

“Mostly I make them forget,” he says. “That’s why I make them forget. It’s not for me. I can help them and then they forget the part that worries them and remember the part that heals them.” He tilts his chin up, and for a moment, under the brim and through shaggy bangs, she can see a flash of earnest water-blue eyes. “Besides. Upset is not the same as hurt.”

This is a shade of subtlety that Cassandra could not possibly parse. She feels strongly–she knows there are those who doubt that, call her the ice maiden (never mind that she is maiden neither in years nor in literal fact) or the iron princess (which sounds like the title of one of Varric’s books, and Maker, she hopes it does not give him ideas), but she does feel very strongly. But she is not subtle. 

Josephine would know the difference. Josephine has little patience with Cole (although it was worthwhile just for the time she caught Josephine reprimanding Cole in a tone of voice that previously she had saved only for her siblings), but she would understand what he means by upset and hurt not being the same thing.

…which has brought this around to Josephine again.

“You’re afraid that there’s a curse on you, the worst kind of curse, a curse where the doom falls not on you but on those around you, on the ones you love, and spares you to go on alone.” Cole’s voice is soft, wondering, wandering.

Cassandra’s temper breaks. She flings her practice sword at the training dummy, point-first, with enough force to drive it through canvas and straw, and wheels on Cole. Unlike almost anyone else in Skyhold, he does not so much as twitch. (Cole is one of a very small group of people who have no fear whatsoever of her. Josephine seems to be another. And what makes Cassandra sour with sickness is the fear that perhaps Josephine _should_ be afraid. Not because Cassandra would ever lay a finger on her in anything but love, but because–

–because Cole was not wrong. She fears. How could she not? How could she forgive herself if anything were to happen this time, as it has happened so many times before? Especially to Josephine, sweet brilliant Josephine, who deserves _everything_ , and Cassandra’s greatest fear is that instead she will give her _ending_.)

“I told you,” she says, voice tight as a tensed muscle. “I do not want to talk about this.”

“Trading fear for fury, falling, fierce and fighting–there is nothing to fight. No curse follows you. No spirit lingers to torment you by torturing and taking those you love.”

“Then explain to me,” she says. “If you know so much, _Cole_ , explain to my why–why it keeps happening.”

He is quiet a long moment, head dropped far enough that the brim of his hat conceals most of his face. Then he lifts his chin again, and says, with perfect certainty: “You have had very bad luck.”

Cassandra can’t help it: she laughs. It is not a particularly _happy_ laugh, it is born of surprise rather than amusement, but it is still laughter. She rubs her hands over her face. “Is that the best you have?”

Cole looks at her with that set to his mouth that means that he has no idea what she means. “It is the truth. It’s all I have.”

Cassandra sighs. The fury has left her; as is usually the case, it burns hot and clean, without even ash left in its wake. “That should be my line. If I were a better Seeker." _If the Seekers were better_.

"That isn’t your fault either,” Cole says.

“When you do that, it really _is_ rather disconcerting.”

He shrugs, such a disarmingly human gesture. “It is who I am,” he says, which is a sentiment so familiar to Cassandra’s own heart that she cannot help but smile, despite herself. 

She turns, bracing her foot against the dummy to pull the training sword out. She half-expects Cole to be gone when she turns back, but he’s still there. 

“Head, hand, and heart, bound and burdened and still borrowing the burdens of others. Bright belief, stern without and soft within. Furious, fierce, frightened, found, firm. No wonder Faith found you.”

Cassandra flushes. There is really nothing to say to that. “I think I’m done for now,” she says. “Shall we go to the tavern?”

“Yes,” Cole says, hopping down in that snake-fluid way that is not quite, quite human. “Will you read to me?”

“I thought you liked the words in my head better than the words on the page.”

“I do. It comes through clearer when you’re reading. You focus when you read, all attention drawing down to a pure point. I can see clearly then.”

“Not _Swords and Shields_ , then. There are some words in my head that you don’t need to see.”

* * *

“You’re in a good mood,” Josephine says when Cassandra returns to their rooms, rather later. 

“Am I?” Cassandra asks, slightly startled.

“You were humming.” Josephine puts down her quill and looks up. Her smile, as always, is brilliant. “I wasn’t complaining, mind you.”

“Oh. Well. I suppose I am.”

“Just a moment, let me finish writing this,” Josephine says. 

Cassandra unlaces her boots, then comes up behind her, sliding arms around her shoulders and bending forward to kiss the top of her head. (Josephine’s hair is still up; Cassandra’s chin is pricked with pins, but she doesn’t mind.)

“You _are_ in a good mood,” Josephine says with a laugh, putting her quill in its stand. “Did something happen?”

“No,” Cassandra says, because it would be too difficult to explain. Her tongue never finds the right words.

Josephine tilts her head back to meet her eyes upside-down, and Cassandra leans forward to kiss the tip of her nose. “Well,” Josephine says, bringing one hand up to cover Cassandra’s, “It’s good to see you happy.”

Which startles Cassandra. Has she been so dour? But–ever since Caer Oswin the answer has probably been ‘yes.’ She has had reason. But….

“I will try to be less of a stormcloud to your sun,” she says.

Josephine smiles, lifts her hand to kiss it. “I love you even when you are full of lightning, you know.”

Cassandra… will most likely always worry, she knows. She could hardly not, and no conversation with Cole can solve it so easily. But now she has awakened to the hope that perhaps she will have the luxury of worrying for a long, long time.

For now, she lowers her head, forehead to forehead, and exhales.

**Author's Note:**

> Because this was a coda to cups of sorrow thrown into the ocean, it seemed only appropriate to give it a title from the same poem: [Consolation](http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/177886), by Wislawa Syzmborska.


End file.
